Administrator

The tutorial below can help show you how to turn on Windows Defender. However, if you have a 3rd party AV program installed, it will usually disable Windows Defender until the 3rd party AV is uninstalled. Of course, you would only uninstall it if you wanted to use Windows Defender instead.

Member

What a mess. Okay, I had an expired Mcafee virus, tried to uninstall it, won't go. Tried some stated things, nothing works. Decided no Defender, I'll do Avast. Go to Filehippo, dload wont take. Go to Avast homepage, clk on free down download, it starts. Clk on 'run', wont go, says signature is corrupt...same if I clk 'save'. Gave up on that.

Tried Avira. Won't download from the Filehippo page, just like Avast wouldn't, had to go to Avira homepage. Got it done. But I'm running a scan with it, and after 3 hours it's only 49% done.....does that seem right? And I still can't uninstall the expired Mcafee that still shows in control panel, even after doing the things suggested. Being expired, does it still matter that I can't get it to uninstall?

By the way, it's so easy to make a mistake on the Avast, or other downloads from Filehippo. Click on Avast, goes to next page, and underneath "Avast" is giant blue "Download Now" button.....but not for Avast, for one of those 'speedi-fix-my-comp' things, and very tiny letters saying "Advertisement".

IMPORTANT: Because the MCPR tool is updated periodically, always download a new copy before each use.
b. Navigate to the folder where you saved the file, and double-click MCPR.exe.
c. If you see a User Account Control dialog box, click Yes.
d. At the McAfee Software Removal screen, click Next.
e. At the End User License Agreement (EULA) dialog box, click Next to accept the agreement.
f. When prompted, type the Captcha information exactly as seen (it is case-sensitive) and then click Next.NOTE:This steps minimizes accidental executions of MCPR.
g. If you have Family Protection installed, you will need to follow these steps. Otherwise, continue to Step h.

I. Type your Family Protection Administrator name and Password, then click Next.
ii. If authentication fails, follow the on-screen instructions to obtain an uninstall code.​

h. When you see the message CleanUp Successful, restart your computer because your McAfee product will not be fully removed until after the restart.

IMPORTANT: If you see the message Cleanup Unsuccessful, save your MCPR log files for analysis by Technical Support:

i. At the Cleanup Unsuccessful dialog box, click View Logs. Your troubleshooting log will open in a Notepad window.
ii. Click File, Save As, and save the file to your Desktop. Name the file MCPR_date.txt (for example, MCPR_Jan10_16.txt).
iii. Contact McAfee Technical Support and provide the log file to your technician for troubleshooting.​

i. Confirm that all McAfee products have been removed from your computer before continuing to the next step.

Active Member

Two important programs that I have on my Utilities CD, and use quite often, are the Norton removal Tool and the McAfee removal tool.

Another tool I like to use to get rid of difficult programs, is the "REVO Uninstaller, FREE".
It not only uninstalls the program, but also gets rid of the folders and registry entries that many programs leave behind when they UN-Install.

Windows Defender will not (usually) run till all traces of the old AV software are removed.
Even some Anti-Spyware software, like Spybot S&D 1.62, will prevent Windows Defender from starting.